Lick Your Lips and Cry
by Tendo Rei
Summary: For the next moment, it may be you. Just a little bit of midnight insanity.


**Lick Your Lips and Cry**

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, but if i squint reeeaal hard, I can speed up time and bring book seven closer.

* * *

_Lick your lips now and cry "O, for the hunt!" for tomorrow, the hunt may just be you. _

He knows he is not attractive. He is the first to know that. He has grown up hating himself in the mirror, even before he comes to this place of vastly better people. He who has never tried a moment in his life. For he knows, he knows, the price of failure.

He also knows he is not intelligent, clever, smart, sharp, quick on the uptake, what have you. "Pettigrew" is the last to be called, if ever. So he must skulk, small, gray, and unimportant. Not quite in the shadows, for he fears the dark. Yet out of the light, for he fears exposure as well.

He knows he is not well-liked. Those that allow him to hang around do so out of revulsive pity, something he has come to count upon. He attaches himself, remoralike, to bigger and faster fish. And at Hogwarts there were no faster fish than the golden Three.

He knows he is not strong. True strength comes with recognizing your weaknesses and then overcoming them, one by one. He has never gotten past the first step. But those that surround him are always strong, yet nearsighted enough that they allow him so close.

He is well aware of how many people loathe him, and on how many different levels. The Snape boy would see him crushed like an insect under the heels of indifference. Fine, pale Lucius would see him and his friends slaughtered like dogs, while he chats up Sirius's cousin. But there is no one, not in the world, whom hates Peter as much as he does.

He is a coward, there is no doubt about that. Why else would he laugh so hard at the misfortunes of others, some he would often sycophantically flatter one minute and jeer at the next. But always from behind something. He laughs his hardest, thanking god each time that it is not him under scrutiny.

He knows he doesn't really belong. How long had Peter been an odd puzzle piece in his own life? He was unnecessary, uncouth, unkempt, and unclean. No one really liked him; but again, not half as much as he didn't. Now here, in Gryffindor of all places, he feels he belongs least. There must have been a reason, his lycanthropic friend reasons when his back is turned, why would the sorting hat make a mistake like this?

Why indeed.

But of all these things, Peter Pettigrew is one more thing, and that is the most important of all.

He is wise. Not in a conventional sense. But he has been himself for so long, he has begun noticing what people see in him, and what they really want. To a certain degree. He has grown up completely ignorant of the ways of others who wear their hearts on their sleeves and their attributes on their forehead like it's some absurd contest.

He has cultivated a laugh, a simper, a plead, a stare, feigning ignorance, and for the first time, he feels he really knows what to do.

Stepping out of class; summer's almost over, the air is a green liquor that makes one heady if they breathe much. One should relax, but young master Montague is certainly not relaxed as he hexes two fourth-year girls into dancing their feet raw.

Peter catches a divine scent; it's a fresh-quarry scent, the smell is music to a liar's soul. He will turn with the others, tongue lolling out like some monstrous basset hound, baying for all he is worth. He will join in pursuit, yes, and perhaps even the kill. But he will not partake in responsibility. That portion is for the others.

That burden must only be shouldered by those who possess the equipment to do so; those born with talent, money, brains. Those gifted with everything but wings. They must go and do things he could only dream about, while he stands on the ground, hunger and need and jealousy gnawing a hole in his stomach.

Yes, he lived by the sword, his life balanced on a hair every day. He laughed loudly with the others, make comments, compliments. He, a mere dog, ran with wolves. And he sunk his twisted words into tender flesh because he knew, oh how he knew, that once the pack was satisfied, they would go on. And on. And on.

And if he could not bring them sustenance, they would turn upon him and devour him. It was inevitable.

Unless he got them first.

* * *

_Author's note: this little Irish ditty came out when I was trying to write another one-shot piece(which I hope'll be up soon). I was inspired by the High school pecking order, and the fact that Peter gets a hungry look in his eyes when he spots potential fodder for James. This was all written at around one in the morning, so forgive me if it's uneven. I was feeling a little uneven myself._


End file.
